Calgary Sanctuary, Canada

Ashley only tilted her head for a moment, letting out a low vampiric hiss as she crouched low, looking like a snake getting ready to strike.


Juliara for the most part seemed alright, though a portion of her skin seemed to have turned to ... stone? Before she could fully question that though, Juliara looked up at her and muttered, "not Ashley ... not any more. She's been ... altered."


At that moment, Ashley let loose a snarl and lunged for Winona, seeming to be driven purely by vampiric instinct at the moment.

Winona crouched slightly when Ashley hissed, listening to Juliara's comment. "Alright then. Well, Helen won't-" She started, interrupted as Ashley lunged.

Winona jumped, back and off to the side, looking to buy time to examine Ashley's fighting style. It certainly wasn't anything like how she used to fight, not really surprising considering her new powers. She continually backed up, giving ground under the younger Magnus' assault, those claws tearing into her clothes, earning multiple slices to her arms as she blocked with them, lines of dull blue welling up as her blood leaked out of her.

Ashley continued to attack, and as she did, Winona could tell there was no thought other than pure carnage behind the girl's attacks. She didn't recognize her, or if she did, she didn't care. She continued to press forward, her attacks periodically hinting that at least a part of her was still in there, as some of the moves were clearly from her original fighting style. However they were interspersed with moves Winona hadn't seen before, possibly something from Vampire memory, but even if that were so, Chris himself didn't fight like this.

For the most part, it actually seemed like she was toying with Winona, testing and gauging herself against her, not revealing more than she had to. Which meant there was some sort of higher function going on here, or wore, some sort of control and outside observer watching this.


Juliara meanwhile had managed to get to her feet and recover somewhat enough to assess the situation. She knew if Ashley had become anything like what Chris was capable of, then they were in big trouble. Still, she wasn't about to quit without a fight, nor was she going to let Winona face the thing Ashley had become alone. Summoning her strength and powers, Juliara began to shift, turning herself into an Earth like elemental. Then, hoping Winona could keep Ashley focused on her for a few moments longer, she began to move to try and attack, hoping at the very least to buy them a few moments time if she could flatten Ashley ...

Winona fought carefully, more interested in stalling Ashley than damaging her. She was forced back at a steady pace, relying mostly on twisting away and slapping aside the other woman's claws, instead of changing form to something that could take a hit. She was hard pressed to do so however, her training with Chris the only thing allowing her to keep up with Ashley's vampiric strength and speed, and still suffering gashes from the claws here and there despite it all, her pale blue ichor clinging to her wounds and seeping, rather than dripping out of her as hemoglobin would.

She remained quiet, eyes focused on Ashley rather than Juliara, seeing the other woman in her peripheral vision slowly stand and start to shift. When she was ready, Winona jumped back a little further, holding her hands out to Ashley in a stalling motion. "Wait! Enough, please! Why are you doing this?" She asked, trying to provide a credible distraction.

If it worked, Winona would swap tactics with the other woman, hoping Juliara would take the brunt while she quickened her blood, forcing a change in herself as fast as she could manage. The bare minimum before she would jump back in, her face and body changed halfway towards her Lilian form, mandibles spread wide to try and catch Ashley in the shoulder and inject a dose of her knockout venom.

Ashley seemed to pause for a moment, and it seemed as if Winona might have struck something within her, the girl having an almost confused look on her face.

As suddenly as it was there, it was gone though, and at that moment Juliara's earthen form lit into Ashley, driving her backwards for a moment.

As Winona came forward to inject though, suddenly there was nothing but wall in front of her, Ashley vanishing. A moment later, she heard Juliara let loose a groan.

"She ... teleported. What the hell did they do to her?"


Juliara came forward, still on guard, as if expecting Ashley to jump at them again suddenly, but that didn't seem to be likely to happen. As she did, she winced slightly as part of her body seemed to ... shimmer for a moment, almost returning to normal before taking back her earthen form.

"We need to get the E.M shield up ... and then I'm going to need your help. She got me pretty good before you arrived, fairly deep on my leg. Think I'll be alright if you can help patch it up but ... right now staying in this form is the only reason I'm standing, and even still ... it's getting harder to hold the form."

The suddenness of Ashley's disappearance made Winona stumble slightly as she followed through on her lunge, surprised that the woman could react so quickly when she had hoped Ashley would be distracted. Her transformation continued, chitin growing out of her skin to armour her body, and a second, then a third pair of arms unfolding from her abdomen, each tipped with claws. Extra eyes opened on her face, listening to Juliara and nodding.

"You're probably weak from the bleeding, if it's that bad. I can web it up for you, but you may be better off staying in this form as long as you can manage, since you're not bleeding at all through that rocky hide." She said carefully, still wary for an incoming attack herself. She had seen Druitt fight, and expected much the same strategy from another teleporter. "And yes, the EM shield would be quite helpful. We should hurry."

Juliara nodded.

"Should be a computer we can ... access it from just down the hall."

She grimaced slightly before adding, "I'll hold shape as long as I can ... not sure how long I can though, and once I can't ... It's going to be messy."


Nevertheless, she started slowly moving to show Winona where to go, but it was obvious she was no where near full speed. Fortunately though, it didn't seem like Ashley was coming back.

Winona nodded, slipping an arm under the other woman to help support her as they walked. "Let me know before you do, I'll do what I can." She said, letting Juliara point the direction of travel.

It took a few minutes, but they finally managed to reach the computer they needed, with Juliara inputting a command that activated the E.M Shield finally. With that finally active, they could be assured no one would just simply be teleporting directly on top of them, though that didn't completely mean they were out of the woods yet.

After putting up the shield, Juliara sagged slightly against the wall, seeming to be losing steam. A moment later she looked at Winona, with an almost glassy look in her eyes.

"Don't think I can keep this form much longer. But ... something else is wrong. Even with blood loss ... I shouldn't be fading this fast ... and having this much issue, not in this form. Don't know if it's a toxin or ... something else but ... I think something is interfering with my shifting ability."

Winona frowned, taking stock of her own injuries. "I am not sure. I havent felt anything so far, though it could be that I'm not close enough to human to be affected properly." She answered, helping her down against the wall for now. "I can go on without you, we still need to be sure the facility is otherwise clear. Try to stay awake if you can, so long as the EM shield remains up, we should be in much better straits."

Juliara shrugged slightly.

"Or whatever it is was specifically designed for me, the Cabal know of my species. From what I understand, they're less familiar with yours, no baseline to work with."


She paused for a moment, her form seeming to shimmer for just a moment before solidifying once more.

"I'll do what I can but ... wait, someone's coming down the hall."


The sound of footsteps coming towards them became audible, and a moment later a pissed off looking Henry came around the corner, skidding to a halt when he saw the two of them.


"What the heck is going on? You two look like you went a few rounds with ... well I don't know what."

"This is true." Winona offered, before she turned to check on the footsteps. Seeing it was Henry, she relaxed, but only partially.

"I don't think you want to know what we went a few rounds with, but let's save that for later anyways. Good to see you, Henry." She said quickly. "We got the Em shield back online, but the rest of the facility's defenses are still down. Think you could reactivate them, or at least get the cameras working and give us a better look on where we're needed?"

Henry slipped straight into what some called his 'business' mode.

"Yeah, one second, let's access remotely on the pad ... OK, got it. Systems activated ... they were turned off, odd. Last code used was ... Ah crap, Will was right about what Watson said wasn't he. Last code used to deactivate everything was Ashley's about 20 minutes ago."


A moment later another voice spoke up from behind Henry, coming into view and revealing itself to belong to John.

"Well ... Chris and Michael were right then. I think we have a much bigger issue than Lazarus now."


For the moment anyway, it all seemed 'normal' according to the camera system that Henry was remotely displaying on his pad.

"I think it may be best if you cancel Ashley's codes, at least until we get this sorted out." Winona commented with a nod towards Henry, glancing over with her multiple eyes and giving the approaching john a nod as well.

"It is the way of things, no issue ever arrives without a guest." She commented. "I think we have stalled the worst of it, but it is far from solved yet."

Clara sighed before she spoke up.

"Unfortunately no, I don't think we've stalled anything at all, merely sped things up. If Chris and Tesla are right, there's going to be more problems very soon. I'm willing to bet she took the source blood with her, right?"

To that John nodded.

"We must speak with Helen and quickly. If those two are right, and I think they are, then the Cabal are after the Montana test subjects. We think they may have a viable, controllable abnormal, and they can use the Montana test subjects to duplicate them."


To that Juliara let out a weak curse before adding, "Winona, you know as well as I do what we just saw ... what they did to Ashley ... that's what they're planning."


Meanwhile Henry was working on his tablet, and had placed a quick call to get Helen up to speed and ready to speak on the phone with John or Clara.